Main findings of year 6 oral health survey
Published 1 February 2024
Applies to England
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Participation rates
In total, 125 out of 153 upper tier local authorities commissioned the survey. Reasons for not commissioning the survey included a lack of providers to undertake the fieldwork. Estimates are available for 123 upper tier and 215 out of 296 lower tier local authorities. Sixty-five per cent of responding upper tier and 43% of responding lower tier local authorities achieved the target sample size of 250 children. Estimates are not reported where fewer than 30 children were examined within a local authority area.
In the South East only 3 out of 19 upper tier local authorities participated and in Yorkshire and the Humber 7 out of 15 upper tier local authorities participated hence regional level estimates for these areas should be interpreted with this in mind.
A total of 53,073 children were linked to geographical areas and included in the final analysis. In the areas where there was at least one examination, the proportion of sampled children examined was 50%, ranging from 44% in the East of England to 60% in the North West. It is likely that non-response bias applies and should be considered when drawing conclusions.
Less than 1% of children with parental agreement to participate refused to take part on the day of examination. Absenteeism accounted for a further loss of approximately 4% of children with parental agreement to participate.
A similar proportion of boys and girls were examined.
Of the children examined, 73% were from the white ethnic group, 12% were from the Asian or Asian British ethnic group, 5% were from the black, black British, Caribbean or African ethnic group, 5% were from the mixed ethnic group, 2% were from the other ethnic group and for 3% the ethnic group was unknown.
Key results
The main findings from the survey show that:
- overall, 16% of year 6 schoolchildren in England whose parents gave consent for participation in this survey had experience of tooth decay
- among the 16% of year 6 schoolchildren with experience of tooth decay, each child had on average 2 teeth with experience of decay
- 3% of year 6 schoolchildren reported to have had pain in their teeth or mouths often or very often and 2% reported to have had difficulty biting or chewing firm foods often or very often in the past 3 months
- there was wide variation in both prevalence and severity of experience of tooth decay by geographical area. Schoolchildren living in Yorkshire and The Humber were more likely to have experienced tooth decay (23%) compared with children living in the South West who were less likely to have experienced tooth decay (12%)
- year 6 schoolchildren living in the most deprived areas of the country were more than twice as likely to have experience of tooth decay (23%) as those living in the least deprived areas (10%)
- there were also disparities in the prevalence of experience of tooth decay by ethnic group, which was significantly higher in the other ethnic group (22%) and Asian or Asian British ethnic group (18%) than in the white ethnic group (16%) and black or black British ethnic group (13%)